Thanks, TD Canada

In 2012, my wife got into a car accident that totalled out 2007 Toyota Camry. I used to have it insured with TD Canada Trust, so we turned to them to handle the situation.

The ensuing nightmare -- that is still causing me serious problems today -- made me confident I should never, EVER, deal with TD Canada in any capacity ever again.

And neither should you.

This email, sent to TD brass back in October 2012, should give you an idea of the kind of service I received from TD.

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Subject: SERIOUS issue regarding Calgary TD claims adjuster, need help (pictures included)

Hello. My name is Israel Nobre and I am a TD Insurance customer (as is my wife, Rebecca Kinsley-Nobre). We both also bank with TD; we have for years.

For the last few weeks I've been having a SERIOUS issue with one of your claims adjuster, a 22 year old claim fellow by the name of [ name removed ] working in Calgary, Alberta. I need to get in touch with either a supervisor, a manager, HR, or all of them. The situation [ nme removed ] is putting us through (and what I've since found out about your employee) is appalling and unacceptable.

I'll try to make a long story short.

On September 11th my wife was driving our car and she was struck by a driver who didn't stop at a stop sign. [ Name removed ] had been assigned to help us.

However, it has been almost three weeks since we last heard from him. Our car (which had some of our personal effects) is now nowhere to be found; the shop that was appointed to us -- to assess the damage -- said the car was deemed totalled (we were never informed of this) and is now literally gone. They simply don't know what was done with it. They cannot locate it, it's not in their possession.

However, we never heard from [ Name removed ] about what actually happened to the car.

We've been leaving messages almost every day and, like out car, [ Name removed ] has simply disappeared. We can never get a hold of him and he has not returned any calls since. We've left 6 or 7 messages in the last 3 weeks or so. Not a single reply.

Needless to say, I need my car, I need the items I left in it and, more importantly, I need to know what exactly is going on with my vehicle. Is it totalled? Where is it? Is anyone actually working on this? The last time we heard from him, he said that we'd get a quote from Claims "before the end of the week". That was some 20 days ago.

Feeling frustrated and wondering if there was something wrong with his phone, I decided to look [ Name removed ] up in an attempt to find an alternate form of contact. What I found was absolutely unprofessional, entirely unacceptable and left me considering never doing business with TD again.

In his public Facebook profile, [ Name removed ] apparently shows great disdain for both his station at TD and customers alike. His page is here http://www.facebook.com/[ Name removed ], but for your convenience I took screenshots of the offending posts (lest he has a sudden burst of conscience/maturity and deletes the offending posts).

In one of them, [ Name removed ] shows complete disregard for his (clearly undeserved) job by saying he "hates the claims department". Here is his post verbatim, dated September 24th:

"Oh hey claims thanks for the day today! I think I forgot to mention something to you... I HATE YOU!!"

Now September 24th was after our accident, and was after we've had to deal with Claims Adjustment. I can't help but feel that this petulant, juvenile remark is somewhat directed at myself and/or my wife, or any other customer who had to talk to him on or close to that day.

In another post (dated August 13th), [ Name removed ] blatantly berates paying customers who are frustrated for having to wait for long period of time before reaching TD. Once again, his words unedited, gross grammar errors and all:

"For all you people out there with cars! When there is a catastrophy hail storm when you call to report the claim don't bitch about being on hold! Your not the only one it happened to! You may be on hold for 2 hours but i've been on the phone for 8! SHUT UP!!"

Now I work in customer service, and I find such a remark absolutely despicable -- I'd lose my job if I were to make such a remark about my customers, and for good reason. [ Name removed ] has no professional regard for his position at TD, his task of helping paying customers, or the customers themselves. Everything about this message -- the tone, the semi-literate prose, the misguided feeling of entitlement -- is a serious indictment of the state of affairs at TD Insurance. I would expect the person handling something as serious as the appraisal of my vehicle to have basic written English skills, or to not behave as a spoiled child when work becomes a little challenging.

The proverbial chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and right now the image I'm getting from this is that whoever hired this fellow was a poor judge of character, which in turn reflects poorly on the company as a whole.

Such a petulant, entitled attitude goes against everything I've experienced as a TD customer all these years and, that alone would make me reconsider doing business with your company, to say nothing of the misplaced vehicle and the unresponsive claims adjuster.

I could go on about much more I've unfortunately seen on his Facebook page (which in my opinion shows Jeremy is a dubious individual whom I do NOT want handling serious matters such as insurance claims), but I believe I've made my point.

If this does not concern you, please forward this message to the appropriate party. I expect a response regarding this matter.

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So that was in OCTOBER. I never saw my car again, no one could tell me where it was, and all my personal items that were inside of it were lost forever. Even worse, I didn't get the cheque for my car until January, for some unexplained reason -- and even then, this was only after I took it to social media and flooded the @TD_Canada twitter page with requests to have the matter appropriately handled. I found it odd that all of the red tape and missed/unreturned phone calls disappeared and I was personally handed a cheque for my car right at my door step by a TD representative after bringing the matter to social media.

Today I got a ticket in the mail for parking in an handicap spot, something I would never in a million years do. I found the ticket odd enough, until I saw the license plate. It's the old Camry license plate, the car that TD made vanish without ever telling me of its location or giving me a chance to retrieve my personal items -- including the license plate.

Now before you say "you should've taken the license plate off BEFORE letting them tow your car to the shop
, 1) I had no idea the car was going to be deemed totalled, and 2) I was under the impression I could trust my personal information to the same company handling my insurance and my finances. I didn't expect them to make my car disappear without actually giving me notice of what was going on -- and I certainly didn't expect them to be SO irresponsible as to lose a license plate.

When I called them to talk about this, all the agent said "well you shouldn't have left the license on the car". As if that's a proper response to losing customer personal information -- "you shouldn't have let us have it in the first place!". As if they have no responsibility to safekeep my personal information, and I'm a naive idiot for thinking I could trust my bank and my insurance company.

Well, they got that part right. I shouldn't have. I should never have given TD my information, or my business.

I'll never, ever, EVER do business with TD Canada ever again.

And I'm seeing a lawyer.